


i have a heart on fire

by sapphoslover



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, S5 spoilers, attempts at manipulation i guess, but set between 182 and 183 sort of, ep-183 spoilers, ladies being sexy, non-sexual choking, only one spider, very brief - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:54:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27043057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphoslover/pseuds/sapphoslover
Summary: When Helen thinks of grief, she pictures Basira's face, alight in the spindly moonlight and lets it tug at the strings of whatever is left of her heart and when she reaches Basira, well, it's almost more than she can take. Almost.
Relationships: Annabelle Cane/Helen | The Distortion, Basira Hussain/Helen | The Distortion, Basira Hussain/Helen | The Distortion/Annabelle Cane (implied)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	i have a heart on fire

**Author's Note:**

> i do not know how this happened. all i know is that i could not stop thinking about the way helen talked about basira last ep. my gayness did the rest.
> 
> title from we are beautiful we are doomed by los campesinos. 
> 
> this isnt betaed. 
> 
> if i need to tag anything else pls let me know!!

She watches. Perhaps it doesn't suit her, but the world isn't alive anymore and when everything twists into glass sharp shards that reflect, well Helen's only a monster. Abstinence never suited her. And Basira is beautiful at the worst of times, hellish resistance in the state of her. She leaves behind residues of resignation as she walks forward, always forward. Doesn't look back. Helen wonders what it would take out of Basira to look back. Wonders, wonders, wonders, never asks. 

She knows Basira wouldn’t answer her anyway. 

There is something to be said about the way Basira persists, something that sticks to the inside of Helen’s mouth and tastes almost familiar. 

What does it say about her, she thinks idly sometimes, twirls her finger in her hair and thinks about everyone stuck in this world, there are two sides to almost everything and she teeters on the edge with laughter in her lungs. 

When her mind permits, she thinks about Anabelle in her own place, ruler as she was meant to be, thinks about her fingers in her own hair, her mouth twisting slightly over her own, never comfortable but always wanted. 

She wonders how Annabelle would feel about it, if her eyes would light up with fireworks and her hand would twist into Helen’s own with fervour and not fear, never fear.

Annabelle is, perhaps, the only one left who Helen would hate to be feared by, would hate for those fingers to tremble when they reach for her mouth, her waist. She doesn’t believe she can hope anymore, or if hope exists at the end of the world, but she hopes for Annabelle anyway. It doesn't do much, she doesn’t need it to. 

Annabelle will be here, she knows, whenever she turns that way, waiting against a door, lips twisted into something Helen could never decipher, the picture of despicable grace, everything that could never be defeated. 

She smiles, despite herself, eyes closing for just a second. When they open, there is a spider lurking near her shoulder. She laughs, unfettered, loud.

“Tell Annabelle I’ll be by soon, and I won’t be alone, well, hopefully.” She says, and swears to whatever deity is left that she hears Annabelle’s voice, clear as death, _what would you know of hope, dearest,_ and laughs again, just as loud. 

The spider lands on her shoulder, stays for a second, two, then leaves and she sighs, thinks of Annabelle’s laughter, her voice like that of a god before they set the world on fire, thinks of her own fingers, trembling, sometimes when they reach for Annabelle. She wonders why they tremble, she wonders why Annabelle never asks. Is she grateful for it? She thinks if she could be, she would.

But it doesn’t do to dwell, there is nowhere to go but forward, nowhere to reach except the end, whatever that might be.

She finds Basira sooner than she thought she would. She’s beautiful in all her deathless perseverance, and something clenches around Helen’s heart.

Basira sees her, perhaps even before she sees Basira.

“You,” she says and it spreads through Helen warmer than anything has a right to be, down to the very bottom of her, makes her shiver with the weight of it.

She thinks, very suddenly, very clearly, if Basira asked her to, she’d sink to her knees and beg for her life. 

“Me,” she says instead, her voice as steady as she doesn’t feel, it should be disconcerting, the way something dead inside her flutters under Basira’s gaze.

“Why are you here,” says Basira, no surprise in her face, nothing but relentless gumption in her eyes, resignation in her hands.

“I was bored,” Helen sings, leans against the door she came from, the pathway that is her as much as she is.

“I’m not sure how much I can help with that.” Basira says, keeps walking forward, forward and Helen almost wants to pity her, almost wants to wrap her arms around her shoulders and murmur against her lips that there is no more forward, that Basira can keep walking and walking until her legs give out but there’s nothing left anymore, not for her.

She knows this, she thinks Basira might know it as well, but stubbornness is a peculiar thing in the way it sticks to the roof of one’s mouth and spreads and spreads and spreads. 

“Oh, but you can,” Helan says, grins, “you are so very fascinating. So much more so than Jon and Martin.”

Something, Helen sees it, something flickering in Basira’s eyes and _oh,_ Helen thinks, when her stomach flutters in tune to it, _oh,_ she thinks as Basira’s eyes land directly on hers, something gleaming in them, like the glint of age-old silver left in the sun too long, something predatory. Her hands tremble, just so, at her side. She lets them.

“You’ve seen them, then?” Basira says, comes closer to her.

“Maybe, why, are you worried?”

Basira hums, and the sound goes to Helen’s gut in a way nothing but Annabelle’s voice does and she wonders why she didn’t do this earlier.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Helen says.

“Anywhere away from you right now.” 

Helen gasps, presses her hand to where her heart should be, an epitome of mock outrage, says, “darling! Why must you hurt me like that? What did I ever do to you?”

Basira laughs, harsh, low in her throat and Helen thinks The Hunt and The Eye must be warring over her constantly.

“Don’t think there’s anything you can do to _me_ that would make a difference.” Basira says, every bit of her fiercer than the damn apocalypse and Helen _wishes,_ in the part of that still can, that she did this sooner. 

“Darling,” Helen says, words getting caught somewhere in her throat so she laughs instead, as jarring as she can make it and trails one ungodly hand over Basira’s arm, her chest, rests it on her shoulder. Basira doesn’t flinch.

“This must be fun for you,” Basira says, doesn’t remove Helen’s hand, “all this suffering. It is what you live for, if you live at all.”

Helen thinks if she was even slightly human she would break apart, fall on the floor, every bit of her coming apart like jagged glass under the weight of Basira’s gaze. It pays, sometimes, to be what she is. 

“I can help you,” she says, trailing her fingers along Basira’s arm, “I can keep you alive, keep your friends alive.”

“Helen,” Basira says, low, not gentle enough to be a whisper, grasps Helen’s wrist and moves forward until Helen’s crowded against her own door, her wrist pinned above her head by Basira, the other one hanging at her side, “I wouldn’t trust you even if I wanted to.”

Helen laughs, it would be so easy, she thinks, to kill Basira right now, she’d put up a fight, she knows, but Helen would win in the end, she always does, but this is the most alive she’s felt since so long and Basira is so beautiful.

“My love, I think you need me more than you know.” She says, lets the smile fall from her face, pretenses won’t do, she thinks, not when Basira has grief raw on her face still, not when everything around them is on fire and she can hear the beat of Basira’s heart as if it were her own and isn’t that a thought? A heart shared between them as if none had come before as if none would come again.

Basira leans forward, her forehead almost touching Helen’s and her other hand comes up, up, up, wraps around Helen’s throat, her head leaning back, and _oh,_ she thinks, dizzy with the spell of it, dizzy with the spell of Basira, this is what it feels to become new, she thinks, as Basira’s hand tightens, just for a second.

“Don’t.” Basira says, voice steady as the ground she stands on, “there’s nothing you can do to me that hasn’t already been done. I couldn’t fear you if I wanted to, Helen. Say hi to Jon and Martin if you see them.”

The hands leave her just as quick, and Basira leans backward, watches as Helen breathes, breathes, she relishes the hint of something not entirely human in the corner of Basira’s eyes.

“I’ll see you again, you know,” Helen says, watches as Basira continues to walk forward, doesn’t look back, “I won’t be alone next time,” she continues, thinks of the glint in Annabelle’s teeth when she tells her about this.

“I know.” Basira replies, doesn’t turn back, “I’d be careful if I were you, even monsters can falter.”

Helen could say something back, she thinks, but she contents herself with watching Basira walk away, leaning against the door. She touches her throat, swallows, once, twice, touches her wrist where Basira had been and shivers, just slightly, the faint whispers of Basira’s touch on her skin something she could cherish. 

A spider titters its way onto her shoulder and she lets out a laugh, breathy.

“Yes,” she says, “that one is quite a handful.”

She touches her wrist again, right where Basira’s hand had been and swears she feels something like a pulse travel from her wrist to her neck where Basira had been. 

She wonders if it’s hers or if Basira leaves behind pieces of herself in everything she touches. She wonders if that means she belongs to Basira. She thinks, if she had to belong to someone, to something that isn’t her patron, Basira wouldn’t be the worst.

The spider on her shoulder leaps onto her palm and she laughs, closes her eyes, and isn’t surprised when she sees Basira’s face painted behind her eyelids, red as spilled blood, as scorched earth, as frayed beginnings. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading. pls do not perceive me. if u liked it leave a comment or kudos jdfhjdhg thank u


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